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Bitcoin
Dreamstime
Bitcoin
was holding steady above $42,000, and
Shiba Inu
was leading a surge in “meme” tokens on Monday as a strong U.S. jobs report lifted overall market sentiment.
Bitcoin, the world’s largest cryptocurrency, has risen 1.8% over the past 24 hours to $42,366. It rose above its 50-day moving average for the first time in more than two months, according to Bloomberg.
Ether,
the second-largest digital currency, has risen 1.6% over the past 24 hours to $3,065, according to CoinDesk. Over the weekend, Ether, the token underpinning the Ethereum blockchain network, crossed $3,000 for the first time in about two weeks.
Shiba Inu, the popular “meme” token, has gained 20.7% over the past 24 hours to $0.000027. It has declined more than 17% year to date.
Dogecoin
was up nearly 6% to $0.156532.
Marcus Sotiriou, an analyst at U.K.-based digital asset broker GlobalBlock, said Monday that the positive reaction to the jobs report — despite giving the Federal Reserve more reason to raise interest rates — “ignited a bounce for the crypto markets too.”
Sotiriou noted how Bitcoin “managed to overcome the downtrend dating back to the all-time-high — $270 million of short positions were liquidated leading to a bit of a “short squeeze’.”
Bitcoin’s all-time high of $68,990 was reached in early November. The digital currency fell to as low as $33,000 in January.
Sotiriou said Bitcoin faces strong resistance at $44,000-$45,000, “with uncertainty in the stock market remaining.” The
S&P 500
has declined 5.6% in 2022, and the
Nasdaq Composite
has fallen an even greater 9.9%.
U.S. stock futures pointed to losses for Wall Street early Monday.
Write to Joe Woelfel at joseph.woelfel@barrons.com